Approved for Orchard Platinum Today!!!

[Anonymous]

My wife has absolutely no credit. She has never had a credit card and never taken out a loan on anything. Not bad for being 26, but she needs to have credit. She applied for Orchard and was approved for a Platinum card at $300.00. Not a very high CL but a good start. She wants to know how long before she can start seeing a change in her credit score.

[shyboy]

i say about 3 months of payment being reported. I would always get a BofA secure card cause they upgrade you to unsecured in about a year

[jaxstraw]

If she pays every month early (better to PIF actually) she'll notice a change in a couple of months from my experience.

The CL doesn't seem like much but Orchard reports faithfully every month so a positive history is built and reported.

Unfortunately she will be stuck at that CL for a long time, but after three months she can app for some other cards.

She should check the pre-approval sites talked about on this site starting in a few months and it will make it easier to not get denials. I know we had my stepson (19) fill out an app for a BoA Plat so he could get denied and then offered the 99/500 card. He had no credit at all and needed to start.

It's a process that doesn't go quickly but she got her foot in the door.

Congrats to her.

Jax

[Anonymous]

I was very excited for her. In fact I was probably more excited than she was. She wants to get a loan for a truck in about 3 months. What do you think her chances are. Household income above 92000.

[Anonymous]

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Nchubb wrote:

I was very excited for her. In fact I was probably more excited than she was. She wants to get a loan for a truck in about 3 months. What do you think her chances are. Household income above 92000.

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Probably not good.  An auto finance company will want to see scores, and you can't generate a score until you have six months of history on a loan or a credit card.  Give it six to seven months, and then see where she stands.

[Anonymous]

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shyboy wrote:
i say about 3 months of payment being reported. I would always get a BofA secure card cause they upgrade you to unsecured in about a year

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Not 3.  It takes 6 months of payment history to generate a score.

[Anonymous]

if you have good credit you could co-sign for her.

[jaxstraw]

Hi Cheddar,

My stepson who I mentioned above had no CC's but did have auto insurance. When we pulled his FICO's he had generated a score ( although in the 500's), but a score. Probably based on the fact auto insurance pulls your credit in some cases.

If she is using or has other products that have pulled her credit she might also have a low score.

Would that make it go back to 3 months approx, or is it 6 months when you start from zero ???

Or am I wrong entirely and it takes 6 months for scores to generate in general even with an existing FICO score ??

Jax

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the advice. She will just have to be patient. Good credit doesnt happen overnight. She has a good start and we can build on that.

[Anonymous]

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jaxstraw wrote:
Hi Cheddar,

My stepson who I mentioned above had no CC's but did have auto insurance. When we pulled his FICO's he had generated a score ( although in the 500's), but a score. Probably based on the fact auto insurance pulls your credit in some cases.

If she is using or has other products that have pulled her credit she might also have a low score.

Would that make it go back to 3 months approx, or is it 6 months when you start from zero ???

Or am I wrong entirely and it takes 6 months for scores to generate in general even with an existing FICO score ??

Jax

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Did your stepson have some other credit product reporting besides a credit card?  It does take 6 months of reported history on either a credit card, an installment loan, or some other type of credit product in order to generate a FICO score at all.

It's possible he had a different kind of "credit score" at the time, but if he was able to obtain a FICO score, there must have been something else reporting, even if it wasn't a credit card.